Hey Mr. DJ turn the music on...

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of days, it's been a combination of not having anything to say and being busy/frustrated at work. I think I've found something to say over the next few days though, so let's begin...

before I was a tri-geek (and one wonders sometimes if I really am) or a movie-geek, I was a bike-geek and a music-geek. I've always been the square peg in the round hole. In high school, there were cliques that I was semi-friendly with, but none that I was a real part of. I remember that I use to walk around school with the headphones on so loud that I'd be able to drown out everything around me. It was a bit surreal to be able to float down the halls like some sort of scene from a movie... the music playing and no natural sound.

Music, I think, saved me from my high-school existence. It was getting into alternative Christian music (again, almost as a backlash to another clique that didn't accept me, the youth-group kids) that connected me with people on the usenet rec.music.christian board... people that 10 years later I'm still connected to. I'm still pretty sure that they like music more than I do, but I still love it.

My musical tastes have always been a bit outside the mainstream. I love a good dance anthem, and I love rock. i've a pretty diverse listening habit. iTunes has been infinitely helpful in changing the way I listen to music. When I still lived with my parents, my office was in the basement and my bedroom upstairs. All of my CDs were in the bedroom, and inevitably I would end up with a huge pile of CDs sitting on my desk as my listening musings shifted throughout the day. I purchased a big harddrive (at the time) and began to fill up my 100GBs with my CD collection. Currently, my iTunes library is measured in days, around 44 to be closer to exact, and when I'm at home, iTunes inevitably gets started to play on random.

I mentioned above that I used to use music as a soundtrack in high school. It wasn't just walking the halls, I'd hear a song and all of a sudden story ideas would leap from my mind... or I'd self medicate my depression with songs from The Choir's Circle Slide or the Vigilante's of Love's Slow Dark Train. I still do that, sometimes hearing a song will trigger something in my head and I'll put it on infinite repeat so that I can channel that emotion as I write on the page. But I also use those songs like Superman used the crystals in the fortress of solitude. Each song is a memory, and a memory that can be applied to focus me on something.

This isn't an mp3 blog, but I'm going to start to post a couple songs each day that steer me in my training or remind me somehow of the Ironman. They're the songs that I use to center and focus myself. Songs will be up for a couple of days before coming down to make room for others.

There's a book I read a couple of years ago called the Psychology of Cycling. One of the things they talked about in that book was 'running programs'. You think of your body as just a part of the bike when you're riding and use your mind to adjust the program and get back into the flow. Breathing in and visualizing all of the lactate flowing out with that exhale. Running a song through your head that you know pushes you forward. Visualizing your legs as the pistons in an engine. Some of these songs have become programs of their own. When I need them, I boot them up in my brain.

When I race, or even just go for a road ride, you can't have headphones. You have to be aware of your surroundings and focused. Most of these songs have been listened to so many times that they're so much a part of me they can be recalled in a moments notice and play through my head... giving me a little charge up.

1. Dave Matthews Band - Where Are You Going?

I've never been a big fan of the Dave Matthews Band. There are songs that I like, and a lot of songs that I just can't stand, but this song stands alone. I first heard it on the video that they handed out to Ironman Wisconsin participants after the race. The song came on as they followed some of the late night finishers to the finish line. Shots of tired, mentally drained people going down hazy, cooling streets, going on because they're driven to go on, not because of any particular joy in doing so. I was there. I was that seemingly stranded individual, propelling myself because I had to, not necessarily because I wanted to, and when I saw a group of people walking with their heads hung low in the video and saw the next shot of people running into the finish chute with the requisite cheering, it stirred up all of my emotions. It still does.

I am no superman
I have no reasons for you
I am no hero; oh that’s for sure
But I do know one thing
Is where you are, is where I belong
I do know where you go is where I wannna be

I remember longing to see Angela while I was running those last few miles. I wasn't any superman, but I was a man determined to finish so that he could see the girl and the family that he loved. When I got into the chute, their was a flood of emotion, everything that I had pushed deep down because the finish line was seemingly so far away bursted up and there I was holding Angela, bawling my eyes out. I had finished. I had done something part of me had never thought was possible. I had pushed myself through one of the hardest races a human can do, and I'd survived... all 230lbs of me.

Everytime I hear this song, that's what wells up. It's a pretty potent thing.

1. Love Inc. - You're A Superstar

Sometimes even a straight kid like me needs a big gay dance anthem. You're a Superstar is that anthem. Need to lay a big fat punch in the face of Common Man Syndrome? A dose of this is usually the thing that will do it.

Reach for the sky, and hold your head up high, because tonight and every night you're a superstar!

Don't be afraid, look at all the friends you've made, like any other night, you've got your name in lights, you're a superstar

I'm not a big fan of hard techno, it doesn't do anything for me. But europop and anthems are the thing that get my cardiovascular tri-geek blood pumping.

Before I made it a triathlon song, it was an anti-depression song. It still works that way sometimes.


Anyway, there's track one and track two. Comment on what your own songs are if you'd like. Let's make this a little more interactive.